THE THIRD DUTCH WAR 481 



with the highest notoriety that public immemorial reputation 

 can give, in the British seas, and that the onus of making proof 

 as to the non-use and enjoyment of it in some certain places or 

 rencounters, as for instance the Dutch coast, or when a small 

 sail of ours met a fleet of theirs, was cast by the law and by 

 reason upon our opposers." l The English Government did not 

 make any immediate protest to the States-General about Van 

 Ghent's refusal to strike to the yacht, possibly lest they might 

 proffer satisfaction and dispose of the episode ; but Charles 

 boldly told the Dutch ambassadors that he thought the conduct 

 of their admiral had been premeditated. 



Up to this time the Dutch had failed to discern the danger 

 which was approaching. After the Merlin incident indeed, as 

 Temple tells us, the Dutch ambassadors in London, " with as ill 

 noses as they have, began to smell the powder after the Cap- 

 tain's shooting." But relying on the well-known animosity of 

 the English people and Parliament to France, and their aver- 

 sion to a rupture of the Triple Alliance, they fondly clung to 

 the belief that the incident was one of the temporary misunder- 

 standings about the flag which would be readily cleared up. 

 The States -General were equally undiscerning, and perhaps a 

 little more obtuse. They adopted a course which, however 

 proper it might have been under other circumstances, now 

 served only to play into the hands of Charles. A manifesto 

 was prepared declaring that by the terms of the treaties with 

 England the salute was to be regulated according to the custom 

 in the past; that it could not be claimed except in British 

 waters, where as their High Mightinesses thought it well 

 to remind the king it was offered only as a mark of courtesy, 

 .and not in recognition of England's pretension to the sover- 

 eignty of the sea. And in order that their intention might be 

 perfectly clear, they instructed De Ruyter to draw up a set 

 of rules prescribing the salute to be given in future by the 

 Dutch fleet to English or French men-of-war on the Dutch 

 coast, which was to be confined to the exchange of guns without 

 .striking the flag at all. 



1 Sir William Temple to Sir John Temple, 14th Sept. 1671. Works, iii. 501. 

 Pontalis, John de Witt, 126, 127. Hume, Hist, of England, cap. Ixv. State 

 Papers, Dom., 1671, ccxcii. 45, 77, 78, 81, 215. Evelyn's Diary (ed. 1850), ii. 69. 

 Brit. Mus. Add. MSS., 30,221. 



2H 



